Had a chance to visit the in-laws and the wife/kiddo in Vegas, so I couldn't pass up on an evening tournament. Especially with my better half indulging in the slots - I'm way more +ev than her, even as a recreational poker player who almost only plays tournaments.
Almost.
I wanted to play in Alliante station's big Sunday night $90 freeze out, but alas, the room is small and they shut it down after a mere 6 tables. Turns out it was their monthly 100% payback tournament, so I had very little chance of getting in as all the locals had already locked up their seats.
I did put in as an alternate, but I was 16th. They ended up taking 4.
So after haplessly standing around for 45 minutes while the wife played slot jockey, I reluctantly plopped down to a 2-4 fixed limit game with a hundred dollar rack.
I remember fixed limit poker from back in the day, enjoyed it then, and believe it or not still enjoy it now. These days it's completely unbeatable, as the old "no flop no drop" axiom doesn't apply. Chips are taken regardless, up to 10% or $6 which is absurd in a $40 pot. Still, it beat draining my bank account on the machines, and I wasn't really in the mood to mix it up with the sunglass wearing punks at the 1/2 tables.
Anyway, the game can be an absolute beast of a grind - but if approached with a light heart and the spirit of fun, well, you get a few hours of entertainment and if you're lucky (as I was) you may turn a tiny profit.
I ended the night up over $30, thanks mostly to good fixed limit habits that I haven't lost. It all came back to me. When I speculated, which is very tempting to do in limit - it was almost always with cards that had some post flop equity and almost always in position. I didn't limp in early position with small suited connectors, but I confess I did with small pairs.
If I had a premium I would raise, knowing I was bound to get multiple callers anyway - but I did get value when my hands held, and I was able to get away on wet boards with action behind or in front.
I felt very comfortable, but also recognized the futility of actually making any money. The table was friendly, fairly fishy and mostly locals. A fine way to spend a Friday night.
My biggest hand of the night came early on. Bunch of limpers, the button raised, I defended my big blind and only one folded (why?) behind. I flopped four to a nut flush with Ah5h. I led out (semi-bluffing is a great tool, though often overused by older players, in Limit) and it was folded to the button who re-raised me and I flatted. The turn brought me the nuts and I led again, he 2 bet me and I 3 bet and he capped. Awesome. The turn was a blank. I fired, he flatted. With all the pre-flop limp/callers the pot was about $50. Silly but fun.
I also dragged a biggish pot on my last hand before I racked up. I was down a few dollars when I looked down at queens from EP and raised. Got 3 customers. Board was a low rainbow. I fired, all 3 called. Great. Turn was an ace, I checked - SO DID EVERYONE ELSE. Awesome. The river was a king. I bet, though I don't know why really. 2 callers, I had the best hand. Maybe $40 in the pot. Funny game.
The next night I figured it would be more family time, but after a way too large breakfast buffet at Red Rock, the wife surprised me by wanting to go play slots. She had ended up a bit after her binge the previous evening, so I was happy to let her. Meanwhile, I took the munchkin bowling and we had a great time.
Later in the evening when things settled down, I was able to go back to Red Rock and enter their super turbo $65 splash-a-ment.
Less than one orbit in, I had aces in the big blind. Limp, limp, limp, limp - and it was on me. Big ass raise, 10x. All folded save for the small blind. Stubborn.
Flop came 566. He checked, I bet large, 2000, a third of my stack and almost a pot sized bet. He called.
On the turn he checked and I should have checked behind here for pot control. Also his check/call on the flop should have set off the alarm bells. A big value bet by him on the river and I should have been able to find a fold.
Unfortunately because I was so pumped to be playing and because I instinctively knew that this home game hero had binked it - I jammed the turn and he snapped with a baby six.
I suck.
Re-entered and went to another table.
Let me just say - I ended up min-cashing in this one, so I made $10 more than my investment; but there were times along the way that were pretty great for me as a poker player. Not the badly played aces or the first hand at my new table though.
I was so tilted that when I re-entered I almost ended up triple barrel bluffing away all my chips.
I watched the table at first, maybe half an orbit. Lots of limpers, very passive.
As I said, I was steamed, so I decided to bet with 2 limpers behind me, I had 65. I made it 3x plus 3 more blinds, 6x total.
All folded but the one older and mouthy guy to my right.
The flop came with a king and two hearts. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. Turn was a black ace. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. River was a blank.
Sigh. I was pretty steamed at this point; both from my badly played aces and the fact that my gut said mouthy didn't have shit for a hand. I knew he was drawing, and I knew that he had missed. He checked, I pushed.
I'm guessing he was a long time vet of live poker, so that's probably why he tanked so long before folding to my river shove (which was another c-bet for half the pot) - he sensed weakness from me, but he knew the only thing he could beat was a bluff, and he didn't have the stones to make the hero call.
It was a big pot. Ship it. Everyone was curious, so I stuck the needle in and showed the bluff.
Felt great afterwards and relieved that my steam 3 barrel bluff had worked out. If a heart had come on the river I likely would have had to give up and been down to a third of my original stack. As it was, I had more than doubled up. I had gotten lucky that my read was right, and even luckier that he hadn't looked me up anyway with ace high.
For the next two hours I was able to accumulate almost exclusively through small ball moves and selective aggression in position.
The nice lady on my left clucked her tongue as I brutalized the limpers. Finally, in a battle of the blinds, she came along into a hand with me when it was folded to my SB and I limped with AJ.
The flop came with an ace and I check called her 3 barrel bluff all the way to the river with top pair to scoop an ass load of chips from her. Perfect read, perfect line to extract the most chips.
As I mentioned, there were a few really transcendent moments - I felt I had absolute control for a good two hours. I finally busted mouthy with pocket kings when he limped and then check raise shoved into me with KJ. Image truly is everything.
I'm trying to remember specific hands, and can't really - but I really felt (at least for those two hours) that I had entered a different level.
I was very disinterested in playing from early position - I folded QJ I don't know how many times, plus loads of baby aces.
In position however, I was a beast, and played all of the hands I folded in EP and more.
Occasionally, if the targets were right, I didn't even bother to look at my cards until the turn if they had stuck around. It was great.
Then the third table broke and we were down to 18 players. I was the tournament chip leader when a young guy and an older gent with sunglasses (usually a bad thing) came to our table.
The young guy I pegged as a better player and avoided him until I couldn't. I raised in the cutoff with a pair of threes and he defended his big blind. The flop came a perfect ragged board with a king. I c-bet, but he wasn't going anywhere. I also c-bet the turn, which I don't remember. He check raised me big. He was full of shit, I felt it, but I had blanked and had to let it go.
Deflated a bit, it was my first significant loss the entire tournament at this table, I took my foot off the gas until I got tangled up with the old guy.
Again, I was in position, but again I had blanked and he check raised me big on the turn. I probably shouldn't have fired a second barrel, but the specifics of the hand escape me.
After those two big hits to my stack we broke for the final table.
Since an average stack was less than 10 bigs at this point, I'm happy to report that my monster stack of 15 bigs managed to hold on just pass the bubble before my AK lost to AQ after all the chips were in pre-flop.
Great time and great fun, but I wish I had adjusted quicker to the two new guys. As it would turn out, the old guy knew what he was doing, the young one not so much - as he managed to spew away most and then all of his chips with absolutely horrific calls that he made POST-FLOP. Crazy.
He didn't make the money, and it was gratifying to see I have to admit. He came off very confident, borderline cocky, but he really didn't have a clue. Earlier I took a hit when I called a tiny stacks shove with aces, and they were cracked yet again.
"OMG that is so sick! How sick is that Oh my God!" he went on and on and on. I didn't say anything, but the old guy chimed in.
"Actually that's pretty standard if you do this long enough..."
It was a remark that was very much appreciated by this fish. The good side of poker once again coming to light.
Speaking of that, my recent post on this blog made it onto 2+2 when I also happened to start a thread on the matter of Barbara Enright.
It is now officially an "epic" thread as it's numbers have climed north of 350 posts and show no signs of slowing.
Predictably, most of the comments are negative towards me, including some rather personal and nasty ones - but it's okay. I called Enright, a woman that I've never actually spoken too, a few nasty names on this blog, and I know she doesn't care. I don't care either.
You see, I'm old enough to understand that adults sometimes get carried away with the name calling, and in the end it doesn't really matter. Was I wrong to drop the c-bomb? Probably. Would I be embarrassed were I to run into Enright and she somehow recognize me or call me out on the name calling? For sure. But I would deal with it like a grown up, and I know she would too. The same can't be said for a lot of the trolls on 2+2, but in the end I hope they could at least recognize the difference between a passionate argument and true malice. I have none of the latter for Ms. Enright and in fact said so in my original post.
As for the bigger picture, I'm really quite thrilled that I seem to have really touched a nerve, that is - the truth hurts and people lash out when someone hits the mark.
My good poker buddy Mixer said he disagreed with my point of view until we discussed it a bit - I actually mostly agree with him and the 2+2 community. I never said I thought it was wrong to say no to any kind of chop. It's always a poker players prerogative to say no. And most chops are indeed bad poker, especially taking a bit off the top to pay the "bubble". I for the most part agree that it's stupid, because it just makes the next guy out the bubble.
But where I depart from the majority, is that more important than having the facts and figures, in the real world I like to live my life by the golden rule, that is, I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated. And in this particular instance, I agree with Barry Greenstein, who is famous for saying - "Math is idiotic."
If I was a life long grinder, a professional poker player - If I had spent most of my waking hours at the table - I would hope that I could still be able to remember back to when I first started and what it was like to be a wide eyed recreational player and what I would have thought if my first ever cash had been callously denied by a humorless senior citizen. In other words, no matter how much the game had beaten me down, I would hope that could put myself in someone else's shoes and weigh that against my own financial interests.
Taking $330 out of $5600 that is almost certain to be chopped up anyway is on it's face an easy choice when it is weighed against the reward of simply thinking of others before yourself. Doing the right thing isn't always the smartest thing, strictly by the numbers. But in the context of this tournament, nearly nine hours into a $75 buy-in event, stuffed to the gills with amateur poker enthusiasts, to make a motion to refuse such a minor safety, after the motion has been announced to the jubilation of the entire room is quite simply a dick move. And I called her on it, and the outrage across 2+2 bears out that I hit very close to home and that I am almost certainly in the right.
Could I have been nicer about it? Sure. Name calling does indeed always weaken an argument; but I've been blogging on a regular basis about poker and lots of other stuff for going on 8 years now, and what I love about it is that I can be brutally honest. More often than not I am brutally honest on myself, but occasionally if I see an injustice, I'm going to call it like I see it. A dick move is a dick move, and if the person pulling the dick move happens to be a douche about it, I'm going to call them a douche. That's just the way it is.
Anger from the other side will often focus on the name calling, because they know they are wrong about the actual issue. That's fine. They are welcome to focus on this minor point because I can sleep well at night knowing I don't bear anyone, even the dicks and douches, any real ill will. But I absolutely will not waste energy and focus trying to walk a super narrow path of righteousness when my opponents have long forsaken any sense of decorum or restraint themselves. There is a line that I won't cross in vitriol, but I am no saint and I will not beat myself up over occasional name calling, especially if it's the truth.
So anyways, I returned to L.A on Memorial Day. without the wife and munchkin, they were to stay on vacation, I had to go back to work. But before work I still had the entire evening before me - so I headed out to the Bike for their Deep Stack poker series - $135 for 18K in chips and a pretty good structure.
I knew going in that this one was a beast, we would be playing till the sun came up if I final tabled and even if I went deep it could be 2am before the money bubble burst. Still, the guarantee was 40K, so it would be a nice payday if I could get to the top half of that final table.
Alas, it was not to be as I busted 64th out of 540 runners, about ten players shy of the money.
Overall I was very happy with my play - I was fine early on with getting all my chips in pre-flop with kings, despite my experience and my gut screaming that I was indeed about to see aces (and I did, it hurt me but I still had 50 bigs or so). I was also very good with my target selection and stealing, up until I made two or three bad moves out of position against monster stacks that hurt me quite a bit. Afterwards I played the shortstack very well and simply got unlucky when my AK lost to AQ - AIPF of course.
The aforementioned bad moves were simply ill advised. I knew the blinds were set to skyrocket and it was time to accumulate, but I really needed to pick a better spot or even abstain for a few more orbits. I loved my first few tables, and managed to score a lot of chips from them, but really the table with the mistakes was more of a table of doom, and I knew it almost immediately after sitting down. The problem was, I had two factors weighing against me - 1) my stack size was medium, a perfect target and not large enough to maneuver post flop effectively, and 2) the table was top heavy with competent (ie, better than me) villains. A deadly combination that thankfully only whittled me down from just under 50 bigs to about 25.
Of course when the levels really got big, it was simply shove or fold. I did get moved to a much better table, so that kept my head above water for a long while. I'm happy to report that when I did pull the trigger I did at least have 15 bigs and hadn't waited too long to get it in. If my AK had held it would have been almost a triple up (all the antes and another short stack caller were in too) and virtually guaranteed me a min-cash.
Yes, I would have loved that, as it was indeed almost 2am when I hit the rail. But on the other hand, I'm glad I wasn't chicken shit about sticking it in. The real money is only at the end, and despite my mishandled steals at the doom table earlier, I feel I could've climbed back if I'd recovered to 40 bigs or so. Ah well. Good times, though I was pretty much dead at work the next day.
Coming up - I'm hoping to get a few more big events under my belt before the WSOP at the end of June. I missed out on Eric's game this week, but that's okay, I think he invited Babs who is one of the WSOP staked players from my home game. She needs the practice. She also did a Bike Deepstack last night and I think it was pretty worth it to go through a bigger card room event like that.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
2 More Cashes
Crazy month. Two more cashes for a total of over $1000 paid to me in May.
First cash -
The aforementioned single table home game at Eric's house last Tuesday night panned out beautifully for me - mostly because I was invited, but also because I was the chip leader at the end and got a nice chop for $200 +$15 in bounties ($225 was the full 1st place prize).
I played well, stealing and bluffing just enough to not only stay ahead of the blinds but to accumulate through all stages of the very well structured and genuine 6 hour deep stack.
Eric runs a great weekly game and his garage always has good guys in it.
I would say I am one of the stronger players, but my edge isn't super big - and every time I play there I know my EV will drop just a bit as they get used to me and are adjusting each time I show up. But thankfully there are a couple of clueless exceptions who are stations and spewers of the highest order that will hopefully keep the game pretty juicy for a long time to come.
Eric, the host, is not one of these chip fountains. He is a solid player who has cashed in the WSOP and a super cool guy who has a great and open approach to hosting and playing that is infectious and fun. One of the things I really look forward to at his game, and even participate in sometimes, is the exchange of information and strategy talk.
I know, I know - why would I ever do that? Well I've talked about it before on this blog, but the short of it is - in my mind, at a home game full of friends, even more important than "making money" (which is kind of silly anyway when you're talking about bar tab stakes, and cheap bar tab stakes at that) is having fun. And the table talk at Eric's game, the genuine and sincere dissections of hands immediately after they unfold, is pure pleasure. Plus I really believe that what little info is divulged, even sometimes more than a little, has minimal impact or influence on the softer players in the game anyway. And even if it didn't, I'd still indulge. I actually get a lot out of it - not so much the thought process of my "opponents" but rather it gets me thinking about hands and optimal or different lines to take with them.
Eric's partner in crime, who helps him organize the game, is Matt, who is also one of the better players and is even more of a strategy chatter box. In fact, he's probably the grand champion - which is actually a pretty wonderful thing. I learn from him, and Eric, and I really get a big enjoyment buzz that makes the evening more than worthwhile, even the ties when at the end I am stuck $55.
On any given night both of these guys can be better than me, and the third player I'd put in that category in Eric's garage is my old poker pal Mixer. He and I have been talking poker for years, so it's a great fit. Last week Matt was chuckling at the banter between us, thinking there was some kind of rivalry - I guess in a way there is; whenever you have two players that respect each other greatly, there is a natural tendency to do your best and use every weapon at your disposal, knowing that even if you come up short you'll be glad it was against both a worthy adversary and a friend.
Last Tuesday though there was very little skill on my part on Mixer's final hand as I coolered him in sick fashion when we were on the bubble - I bet first UTG, my standard 2.5x, I had kings. Mixer looked down and casually tossed in his bounty chip - he was all in with queens and I called super quick and fast rolled my cowboys.
Not sure if I would open shove as he did, but truthfully I don't mind his line - as I recall we were both around 30-40 bigs, and with an eye on a first place finish there's not much maneuvering room post flop. If the board comes low all the monies are going in anyway - I don't think I'm ever finding a fold in that situation if he pulls the trigger on a board that doesn't have an ace on it. Not to mention that Mixer's play is for sure profitable, if I fold (as I would with any steal) that's almost 5 not insignificant big blinds. If I have a strong hand like JJ, 1010, 99, 88, AQ or AJ I'm probably calling and I'm for sure calling with with AK. He's only worried about two hands which, odds are, pretty slim that I have. For the record, I'm never folding QQ pre-flop on the bubble in a 6 hour $55 home tournament.
Later I cracked third place finisher Nick's aces in a disgusting manner when my open shove of QJ (me with 125K and him with about 20K) ran into his bullets. Running queens on the turn and river, gross. Still, correct decision on my part but got unlucky and then massively lucky. Poker is a nasty ass bitch sometimes.
And that brings me to my thoughts and concerns about Eric. He has been in a long dry spell, bereft of cashes for the last few months and I couldn't help overhear the other night after the tournament was over that he is likely to take a break for the rest of the year if he doesn't cash soon.
This makes me sad and I wish there was something I could say to get him to see the really big picture, that tournament poker is so heavily influenced by variance that even the best in the world go through long (and I mean long) fruitless stretches.
Daniel Negraneau, who despite being a bit of a douche nozzle at times, is no doubt one of the very best tournament specialists the game has to offer. He played in 33 events in last years WSOP. He cashed twice. One min cash and a deepish run in the Main. In the end he was stuck over half a million bucks. That is a hell of a lot of poker to play to come out so far behind. And this is a guy who plays the game as a full time occupation and also has natural gifts in reading people that most of us will never have.
Eric plays every other week in his house with people he knows very well, but they also know him very well too. As I said above, in time, my edge in his game will get smaller and smaller - I'd like to think it won't vanish, but at a certain point I would not be surprised whatsoever if I went a dozen or two dozen tournaments in that garage without getting a nickel. It's simply inevitable, even for the trickiest of players, that when you face the same guys over and over and over, they are going to mostly know what you are up to. Throw in a hefty dollop of bad luck, and it's not surprising at all that the bankroll takes a hit.
However, all that info really is meaningless to someone who has slipped into the dark pit of despair of poker. I've been on the brink several times in my amateur career - where premium cards seem to evaporate quicker than spit on a skillet and any move that you make seems to backfire every single time. But like that weekend warrior golfer who sucks all day but then hits a superb drive on the 15th hole and then long puts a birdie, I always manage to find a gem of a bluff or maneuver to keep me coming back for more.
And in that little glimmer of hope, amongst all the shit when I go without cashing for long stretches, I still find the fun in the game. If Eric can't find the fun, then a break is probably the best thing. But I really think the rest of the year is too drastic.
I routinely take mini-breaks (say two or even three weeks) and usually find when I return that I'm more psyched than ever to be playing. I think that if Eric stops his game for a month or so he'll probably be jonesing really hard to get back into it and quick.
Second Cash -
After a great weekend with the fam, I was granted a hall pass late Sunday afternoon to gambool it up at the Bike.
The new tournaments that they are offering, called "Quantum-Reload" are intriguing. I didn't quite grasp it from the literature, but what it basically boils down to is a single tournament with a two flight or tiered entry system; if you bust in flight A you can only re-enter in flight B.
Flight A (levels 1 & 2 blinds at 25/50 and 50/100 respectively) is $70 (including a rebuy) for 10K in chips and flight B is $115 (including a rebuy) for 14K in chips (levels 3&4 blinds at 75/150 and 100/200).
So it's a bit weird, but it's a 10K guarantee.
You can't buy more chips if you use your rebuy in flight A and don't bust, so I found myself unable to get more ammo when I was around 6K going into flight B, I chipped up a little bit and was sitting on roughly 50 bigs when the second break and the end of re-entries hit, FOUR HOURS after the tournament started.
Yes, that's not a typo. The first four levels are 55 minutes! Yikes! Afterwards, the entire tournament reverts to the typical lowstakes MTT formula of turbo-ish structure and 20 minute levels. They do it this way, I think, to give people plenty of chances to bust, re-enter, re-buy, etc. and build up the prize pool. With well over 250 runners, they easily met this number.
The result of having such a deep structure to start, is that you get a lot of hands early on and a lot of chances to speculate. Recreational players, me included, do appreciate that it gives a LOT of play value - you will get to see a ton of hands for a very low price point. I could see where a regular or semi-pro might want to avoid this one as there is a better than good chance that you can play for 8 hours and fall short of the money. Also, I'm probably never going to play one of these on a school night ever again.
Anyway, so there I was around 50 bigs after the four hour quantum-reload thing ended. But backing up just a scotch - for the first 3 hours of the 4, I found myself slipping very easily into passive and speculative poker. This was easy to do because everyone at the table was limping, with nary an aggressor to be found. Occasionally someone would three bet, but always too small and typically with a big hand.
It was cool for awhile to limp along and hope to smash some flops, but after awhile it became apparent that this was a very spewy proposition. It's one thing to occasionally flat with a small pocket pair to set mine or a suited ace to fish for flushes, but I found myself taking it further (because there was no immediate incentive not to) and really stretching the definition of the word "speculate".
Q3 sooted. 910 off suit. J8. Blech. What was I doing? It was only after about 3 hours when I realized, just how bad the players around me were, calling with hands like these and even worse, when I kind of snapped out of it and started raising. Raising large with multiple limpers, raising the sb when he limped, just raising in general instead of passively pissing chips away.
It worked. People laid their hands down time and time again - even grousing that this used to be a "friendly" table. Again, I had discovered that it truly pays to shift gears into a mode that is opposite of what the table is doing.
Like I said, I was doing okay when the re-load phase ended.
A ditzy, super skinny and blinged out 35something idiot (who happened to be African American and embodied many of the unfortunate stereotypes thereof) whom I've played with before, had the whole table on tilt (including me I'm afraid) from her incessant non-poker related chatter (including graphic sex talk, but not the good kind - the PC horseshit condoms = health care and should be provided to 7 year olds kind) and her endless slow play. If she remembered to put a blind or ante out on her own occasionally it was a shocking moment.
The news was on one of the television screens and I saw that the Lockerbie bomber had died, I mentioned to a nice lady on my left - and Ditz just had to chime in...
Her: "Who?" Me: "The Lockerbie Bomber"
"Who's that?"
"He was a terrorist who blew up a Pan Am jet in 1988, killed 270 people."
"Huh..." She said, dumbfounded. "And how do they know it was him?"
Really lady? Is it always the fault of the Po-Po? You moron. I didn't answer. She prattled on and on about "terrorists, so called..." even ending up saying that he didn't look like such a bad guy. Awesome.
Anyway, she busted in a multi-way hand with the worst of it the entire way and then got really incredulous "I knew you didn't have nothing."
Okay sweetie, that guy should remember to fold the nuts more often.
Anyway, not sure the point of the story - other than I've played with this imbecile before and I'm sure I will again, and she always makes for an interesting test. She always puts the table on edge and truly alters the game for as long as she is around, which typically isn't very.
So really I shouldn't be passing such harsh judgement on a fellow traveler - it's kind of sad really. She has no clue or wherewithal about how the world at large is. She can only see as far as her neighborhood and the admittedly sad things that go on there. And the fact that she owns this ignorance with absolutely zero shame is what truly gets to me.
I need to step back and recognize how pathetic she is and pray that she somehow finds happiness and somehow grasps the concept that other people than her exist and have thoughts and feelings and experiences that can add to, rather than distract from her own life's journey.
I moved tables, then quickly was moved again.
I hovered around 20-30 bigs for several hours with no giant hands of note in my memory. I still had just enough to fire a 2.5x and then follow up with a c-bet just under half the pot. This worked often enough that I kept my head above water. Occasionally I would just shut it down on the flop, especially if there were multiple players calling behind.
Then I was moved once more and I dipped to around 15 bigs. No real room to maneuver much if at all.
Each table move had brought me to a more and more active group and this fourth bunch was the wildest yet. There were some monster stacks here and they were not shy about being aggressive.
Particularly impressive was a hand that had a big stack four bet shoving with rags, on a squeeze move that he showed with great relish after it had worked.
This same player though made other moves that to me seemed a bit spewey. I was ready for him.
On the big blind I defended his MP 2.5x raise with A8. I still had 15 bigs behind. Heads up, the flop came ragged with an ace. I checked, he c-bet large, I shoved, he was committed and called with bottom pair. Easy double up.
A few orbits later, back down to just under 20 bigs, a nice older fellow to my left defended my SB raise into his BB.
I had nothing, but he had been super tight so I took a stab. The flop came with a king and two hearts, the perfect board to fire a second barrel for half the pot. He considered for a bit and then flat called.
At 12 or so bigs it was time to shut it down or get him off his draw - he had me covered but not by much. The turn was a black 3. I shoved.
He quickly mucked. I had read him exactly right and I got a big rush of adrenaline. He was drawing and the turn was a massive blank. I had gained another 10 big blinds and had room to standard raise again.
But this didn't last. Eventually I was back down to 15. I occasionally would open shove if the timing was right and fortunately it always was, I stole the blinds and antes every 2nd or 3rd orbit as the number of players in the tournament dropped and dropped.
At some point the light bulb went off in my head. I had been moved again, to my fifth table, and looking around at the stacks, there were a few monsters, a few like me, and some really tiny ones. They were paying 27, and there were 35 players remaining.
As much as it pained me, the realization had struck that if I kept at open shoving I could easily go busto and have spent almost 8 hours playing with nothing to show for it. If instead, I shut it down for anything less than jacks to shove and anything at kings or better to call, I stood a very decent mathematical chance at squeaking into the money for $165.
If I played this game for a living, I wouldn't give a shit. As it was, I really wanted something to show for the full work day that I had put in.
Lockdown mode worked out well. Sure enough, the teeny stacks, and even a few medium and big ones fell by the wayside. I first in shoved queens once and got no callers, so my stack was around 12 bigs when we were down to 29 players.
A motion was made to take $330 from the $5600 first place prize and pay two extra players. Motion approved! We're in the money!
But wait...
There was an objection after all. One player wasn't having it.
Okay, that's certainly their right. A little odd considering it's such a small slice of a massive first place prize, which is nearly 50% of the price pool entire and will likely be chopped up anyway, but whatever, it's not the end of the world. It's also bad form and kind of a dick move, but who cares really.
Then I heard who the person was, and it was a name I recognized.
Barbara Enright, is a member of the poker hall of fame. She was put there primarily because she is the only woman to have ever made the final table of the Main Event. She also has two bracelets, including an open event - and she was the first woman to win one of those. Good for her. A results search on the Hendon Mob shows that she hasn't been doing that fantastic of late, binking teeny cashes in teeny events, but hey, she for sure deserves to be in the hall.
So okay, good for you. So here you are in a $70 tournament full of recreational players like me who work hard all week in 9-5 jobs just so we can go out and have some fun playing poker and donate to people like you. We play for 8 hours, the money is in sight and what do you say to that?
A big "fuck you fishy" apparently. You can't see that there might be a modicum of +EV to have two more amateurs happy that night? And that there might be a hell of a lot of -EV, both in the game and outside of it, for you when word gets out that you're a miserable bag of meat who delights in making other people miserable too?
Guess not.
Most ridiculous of all, she wasn't chip leader, or anywhere close to it for that matter. Roughly 60 bigs, which was pretty puny compared to the mountainous piles around her.
The entire room was abuzz with disgust at Ms. Entright's stubborn and apparently spiteful edict, which she had insisted on AFTER the official "you've made the money" announcement was made. I got an earful from the regulars at my table how "she does this shit all the time" and how "she's a miserable old bat" who thinks of no one but herself on and off the felt.
Okay, I'm convinced.
Really, the biggest strike against her as far as I'm concerned is that visible pros, especially ones in the freakin' Poker Hall of Fame, have a very real obligation to be ambassadors of the game.
Poker is indeed a brutal sport and often ruthless, but what makes it magnificent is the flashes of generosity and honor that flare up on occasion. I have witnessed this myself many times at the table - whether it's a group of Vegas regulars digging into their own pockets to pay the tourist bubble who just busted or a crusty old dealer misreading the board and a young internet kid politely correcting him so that HIS OPPONENT would rightfully get the pot - it DOES happen, and every time it does, a little bit, a tiny bit, of the stigma that the game still carries from the riverboat days when it was known as "the cheating game", washes away.
Then a first class douche nozzle like Barbara Enright comes along and takes a big dump on that goodwill, and recreational players like the fellow across from me who did indeed turn out to the bubble walk away discouraged and bitter.
Worst of all, the bigger point is, because of Miss Enright's short sightedness, we had to go hand for hand. I've never experienced this before, in my 7 years of live tournament play, simply because nobody, not even one of the biggest chip leaders I've ever seen who literally had half the chips in play in front of him, had the classlessness to insist on boning the bubble boy.
The guy who finally busted out 28th, the aforementioned fellow across from me, was eliminated in heart wrenching fashion. Forced to go all in blind, he flopped the wheel, and lost to a higher straight on the river!
Good job Barbara Enright, hope it was worth it. That guy ain't coming back and he's going to tell every single one of his friends and family what a raging cunt you are.
And some people might even blog about it.
Anyway, back to me. We redrew for the final three tables I was moved to Miss Enright's tables, but had no interest in saying anything to her or even acknowledging her presence. She for sure sensed this from around the table, but she truly did not give a massive fuck. I do admit I have a teeny bit of respect for that, but moreso, my compassion creeps in and I feel more than a twinge of sadness for a lifelong degenerate that is so empty inside.
19-27th place would only make $165, so I happily loosened up and shoved here and there, no callers, so I kept my head above water. Then I got queens! I shoved my 8 BB stack and got called very light by a mongo stack and my hand held for a nice double up.
Now I had a real shot to make a pay jump, and by the skin of my teeth I did, booking $245 for 18th place after my first in A6 from the button was called by the big blind with 57 and turned trip 5's.
It was 130 in the morning, but I was happy - happy to have lasted and (excluding a couple of lovely moments of genius on my part) mostly folded into the money.
Recreational player happy, Barbara Enright still miserable.
Speaking of miserable, one last dreadful story.
After the bubble had burst and I was at Enright's table, there were three monster stacks down at the opposite end. It was time to color up, removing the 500's and cutting down on the sheer volume of 1000's. With most of the players gone I watched the floor do their thing with the racks and the chips.
The 3 big ass stacks each had most of their 1K chips replaced with bright yellow 10K chips, the blinds were huge, and this would make it easier for them and for everyone. Standard. All rooms do this.
The owner of the biggest stack of all came back and immediately launched into a half serious/ half typical So Cal cardroom douche = humor rant about "The sickness you guys have with touching my chips". It was explained to him that TDA rules call for it and he bitched and moaned as if he was hilarious and all casino staff were idiots. Standard So. Cal jackass / bad stand-up comedian.
So a few hands go buy. A big stack to douche's right three bets an EP raise. Douche ships it. Original raiser folds, 3 better calls and fast rolls his rockets.
Douche turns up A10!
After AA dodges a suckout douche loses his shit. Not on AA, but on the TD!
All sorts of nasty names come out and before he knows it, he's on a full round penalty. He stalks off and rants and raves to his friends near by.
What. A. Moron.
It was going to take a lot to make Barbara Enright seem like a nice and normal person by comparison, but this guy did it.
Kudos to the TD for swiftly penalizing the dick hole and then following up with a stern threat of disqualification which actually silenced the douche as he stormed off in a huff.
A casino not taking shit from a regular is a rare thing in So Cal. If the Bike would do it more often they'd have a much nicer place to play. As of now, the lack of shit taking is the exception rather than the rule, and the inmates are pretty much running the asylum. Hollywood Park is a much more civilized place to play, and that's really saying something.
Anyway, really looking forward to a fun Friday night with with home game. Thanks to my run goot, my confidence is pretty high right now and that always helps me play better.
First cash -
The aforementioned single table home game at Eric's house last Tuesday night panned out beautifully for me - mostly because I was invited, but also because I was the chip leader at the end and got a nice chop for $200 +$15 in bounties ($225 was the full 1st place prize).
I played well, stealing and bluffing just enough to not only stay ahead of the blinds but to accumulate through all stages of the very well structured and genuine 6 hour deep stack.
Eric runs a great weekly game and his garage always has good guys in it.
I would say I am one of the stronger players, but my edge isn't super big - and every time I play there I know my EV will drop just a bit as they get used to me and are adjusting each time I show up. But thankfully there are a couple of clueless exceptions who are stations and spewers of the highest order that will hopefully keep the game pretty juicy for a long time to come.
Eric, the host, is not one of these chip fountains. He is a solid player who has cashed in the WSOP and a super cool guy who has a great and open approach to hosting and playing that is infectious and fun. One of the things I really look forward to at his game, and even participate in sometimes, is the exchange of information and strategy talk.
I know, I know - why would I ever do that? Well I've talked about it before on this blog, but the short of it is - in my mind, at a home game full of friends, even more important than "making money" (which is kind of silly anyway when you're talking about bar tab stakes, and cheap bar tab stakes at that) is having fun. And the table talk at Eric's game, the genuine and sincere dissections of hands immediately after they unfold, is pure pleasure. Plus I really believe that what little info is divulged, even sometimes more than a little, has minimal impact or influence on the softer players in the game anyway. And even if it didn't, I'd still indulge. I actually get a lot out of it - not so much the thought process of my "opponents" but rather it gets me thinking about hands and optimal or different lines to take with them.
Eric's partner in crime, who helps him organize the game, is Matt, who is also one of the better players and is even more of a strategy chatter box. In fact, he's probably the grand champion - which is actually a pretty wonderful thing. I learn from him, and Eric, and I really get a big enjoyment buzz that makes the evening more than worthwhile, even the ties when at the end I am stuck $55.
On any given night both of these guys can be better than me, and the third player I'd put in that category in Eric's garage is my old poker pal Mixer. He and I have been talking poker for years, so it's a great fit. Last week Matt was chuckling at the banter between us, thinking there was some kind of rivalry - I guess in a way there is; whenever you have two players that respect each other greatly, there is a natural tendency to do your best and use every weapon at your disposal, knowing that even if you come up short you'll be glad it was against both a worthy adversary and a friend.
Last Tuesday though there was very little skill on my part on Mixer's final hand as I coolered him in sick fashion when we were on the bubble - I bet first UTG, my standard 2.5x, I had kings. Mixer looked down and casually tossed in his bounty chip - he was all in with queens and I called super quick and fast rolled my cowboys.
Not sure if I would open shove as he did, but truthfully I don't mind his line - as I recall we were both around 30-40 bigs, and with an eye on a first place finish there's not much maneuvering room post flop. If the board comes low all the monies are going in anyway - I don't think I'm ever finding a fold in that situation if he pulls the trigger on a board that doesn't have an ace on it. Not to mention that Mixer's play is for sure profitable, if I fold (as I would with any steal) that's almost 5 not insignificant big blinds. If I have a strong hand like JJ, 1010, 99, 88, AQ or AJ I'm probably calling and I'm for sure calling with with AK. He's only worried about two hands which, odds are, pretty slim that I have. For the record, I'm never folding QQ pre-flop on the bubble in a 6 hour $55 home tournament.
Later I cracked third place finisher Nick's aces in a disgusting manner when my open shove of QJ (me with 125K and him with about 20K) ran into his bullets. Running queens on the turn and river, gross. Still, correct decision on my part but got unlucky and then massively lucky. Poker is a nasty ass bitch sometimes.
And that brings me to my thoughts and concerns about Eric. He has been in a long dry spell, bereft of cashes for the last few months and I couldn't help overhear the other night after the tournament was over that he is likely to take a break for the rest of the year if he doesn't cash soon.
This makes me sad and I wish there was something I could say to get him to see the really big picture, that tournament poker is so heavily influenced by variance that even the best in the world go through long (and I mean long) fruitless stretches.
Daniel Negraneau, who despite being a bit of a douche nozzle at times, is no doubt one of the very best tournament specialists the game has to offer. He played in 33 events in last years WSOP. He cashed twice. One min cash and a deepish run in the Main. In the end he was stuck over half a million bucks. That is a hell of a lot of poker to play to come out so far behind. And this is a guy who plays the game as a full time occupation and also has natural gifts in reading people that most of us will never have.
Eric plays every other week in his house with people he knows very well, but they also know him very well too. As I said above, in time, my edge in his game will get smaller and smaller - I'd like to think it won't vanish, but at a certain point I would not be surprised whatsoever if I went a dozen or two dozen tournaments in that garage without getting a nickel. It's simply inevitable, even for the trickiest of players, that when you face the same guys over and over and over, they are going to mostly know what you are up to. Throw in a hefty dollop of bad luck, and it's not surprising at all that the bankroll takes a hit.
However, all that info really is meaningless to someone who has slipped into the dark pit of despair of poker. I've been on the brink several times in my amateur career - where premium cards seem to evaporate quicker than spit on a skillet and any move that you make seems to backfire every single time. But like that weekend warrior golfer who sucks all day but then hits a superb drive on the 15th hole and then long puts a birdie, I always manage to find a gem of a bluff or maneuver to keep me coming back for more.
And in that little glimmer of hope, amongst all the shit when I go without cashing for long stretches, I still find the fun in the game. If Eric can't find the fun, then a break is probably the best thing. But I really think the rest of the year is too drastic.
I routinely take mini-breaks (say two or even three weeks) and usually find when I return that I'm more psyched than ever to be playing. I think that if Eric stops his game for a month or so he'll probably be jonesing really hard to get back into it and quick.
Second Cash -
After a great weekend with the fam, I was granted a hall pass late Sunday afternoon to gambool it up at the Bike.
The new tournaments that they are offering, called "Quantum-Reload" are intriguing. I didn't quite grasp it from the literature, but what it basically boils down to is a single tournament with a two flight or tiered entry system; if you bust in flight A you can only re-enter in flight B.
Flight A (levels 1 & 2 blinds at 25/50 and 50/100 respectively) is $70 (including a rebuy) for 10K in chips and flight B is $115 (including a rebuy) for 14K in chips (levels 3&4 blinds at 75/150 and 100/200).
So it's a bit weird, but it's a 10K guarantee.
You can't buy more chips if you use your rebuy in flight A and don't bust, so I found myself unable to get more ammo when I was around 6K going into flight B, I chipped up a little bit and was sitting on roughly 50 bigs when the second break and the end of re-entries hit, FOUR HOURS after the tournament started.
Yes, that's not a typo. The first four levels are 55 minutes! Yikes! Afterwards, the entire tournament reverts to the typical lowstakes MTT formula of turbo-ish structure and 20 minute levels. They do it this way, I think, to give people plenty of chances to bust, re-enter, re-buy, etc. and build up the prize pool. With well over 250 runners, they easily met this number.
The result of having such a deep structure to start, is that you get a lot of hands early on and a lot of chances to speculate. Recreational players, me included, do appreciate that it gives a LOT of play value - you will get to see a ton of hands for a very low price point. I could see where a regular or semi-pro might want to avoid this one as there is a better than good chance that you can play for 8 hours and fall short of the money. Also, I'm probably never going to play one of these on a school night ever again.
Anyway, so there I was around 50 bigs after the four hour quantum-reload thing ended. But backing up just a scotch - for the first 3 hours of the 4, I found myself slipping very easily into passive and speculative poker. This was easy to do because everyone at the table was limping, with nary an aggressor to be found. Occasionally someone would three bet, but always too small and typically with a big hand.
It was cool for awhile to limp along and hope to smash some flops, but after awhile it became apparent that this was a very spewy proposition. It's one thing to occasionally flat with a small pocket pair to set mine or a suited ace to fish for flushes, but I found myself taking it further (because there was no immediate incentive not to) and really stretching the definition of the word "speculate".
Q3 sooted. 910 off suit. J8. Blech. What was I doing? It was only after about 3 hours when I realized, just how bad the players around me were, calling with hands like these and even worse, when I kind of snapped out of it and started raising. Raising large with multiple limpers, raising the sb when he limped, just raising in general instead of passively pissing chips away.
It worked. People laid their hands down time and time again - even grousing that this used to be a "friendly" table. Again, I had discovered that it truly pays to shift gears into a mode that is opposite of what the table is doing.
Like I said, I was doing okay when the re-load phase ended.
A ditzy, super skinny and blinged out 35something idiot (who happened to be African American and embodied many of the unfortunate stereotypes thereof) whom I've played with before, had the whole table on tilt (including me I'm afraid) from her incessant non-poker related chatter (including graphic sex talk, but not the good kind - the PC horseshit condoms = health care and should be provided to 7 year olds kind) and her endless slow play. If she remembered to put a blind or ante out on her own occasionally it was a shocking moment.
The news was on one of the television screens and I saw that the Lockerbie bomber had died, I mentioned to a nice lady on my left - and Ditz just had to chime in...
Her: "Who?" Me: "The Lockerbie Bomber"
"Who's that?"
"He was a terrorist who blew up a Pan Am jet in 1988, killed 270 people."
"Huh..." She said, dumbfounded. "And how do they know it was him?"
Really lady? Is it always the fault of the Po-Po? You moron. I didn't answer. She prattled on and on about "terrorists, so called..." even ending up saying that he didn't look like such a bad guy. Awesome.
Anyway, she busted in a multi-way hand with the worst of it the entire way and then got really incredulous "I knew you didn't have nothing."
Okay sweetie, that guy should remember to fold the nuts more often.
Anyway, not sure the point of the story - other than I've played with this imbecile before and I'm sure I will again, and she always makes for an interesting test. She always puts the table on edge and truly alters the game for as long as she is around, which typically isn't very.
So really I shouldn't be passing such harsh judgement on a fellow traveler - it's kind of sad really. She has no clue or wherewithal about how the world at large is. She can only see as far as her neighborhood and the admittedly sad things that go on there. And the fact that she owns this ignorance with absolutely zero shame is what truly gets to me.
I need to step back and recognize how pathetic she is and pray that she somehow finds happiness and somehow grasps the concept that other people than her exist and have thoughts and feelings and experiences that can add to, rather than distract from her own life's journey.
I moved tables, then quickly was moved again.
I hovered around 20-30 bigs for several hours with no giant hands of note in my memory. I still had just enough to fire a 2.5x and then follow up with a c-bet just under half the pot. This worked often enough that I kept my head above water. Occasionally I would just shut it down on the flop, especially if there were multiple players calling behind.
Then I was moved once more and I dipped to around 15 bigs. No real room to maneuver much if at all.
Each table move had brought me to a more and more active group and this fourth bunch was the wildest yet. There were some monster stacks here and they were not shy about being aggressive.
Particularly impressive was a hand that had a big stack four bet shoving with rags, on a squeeze move that he showed with great relish after it had worked.
This same player though made other moves that to me seemed a bit spewey. I was ready for him.
On the big blind I defended his MP 2.5x raise with A8. I still had 15 bigs behind. Heads up, the flop came ragged with an ace. I checked, he c-bet large, I shoved, he was committed and called with bottom pair. Easy double up.
A few orbits later, back down to just under 20 bigs, a nice older fellow to my left defended my SB raise into his BB.
I had nothing, but he had been super tight so I took a stab. The flop came with a king and two hearts, the perfect board to fire a second barrel for half the pot. He considered for a bit and then flat called.
At 12 or so bigs it was time to shut it down or get him off his draw - he had me covered but not by much. The turn was a black 3. I shoved.
He quickly mucked. I had read him exactly right and I got a big rush of adrenaline. He was drawing and the turn was a massive blank. I had gained another 10 big blinds and had room to standard raise again.
But this didn't last. Eventually I was back down to 15. I occasionally would open shove if the timing was right and fortunately it always was, I stole the blinds and antes every 2nd or 3rd orbit as the number of players in the tournament dropped and dropped.
At some point the light bulb went off in my head. I had been moved again, to my fifth table, and looking around at the stacks, there were a few monsters, a few like me, and some really tiny ones. They were paying 27, and there were 35 players remaining.
As much as it pained me, the realization had struck that if I kept at open shoving I could easily go busto and have spent almost 8 hours playing with nothing to show for it. If instead, I shut it down for anything less than jacks to shove and anything at kings or better to call, I stood a very decent mathematical chance at squeaking into the money for $165.
If I played this game for a living, I wouldn't give a shit. As it was, I really wanted something to show for the full work day that I had put in.
Lockdown mode worked out well. Sure enough, the teeny stacks, and even a few medium and big ones fell by the wayside. I first in shoved queens once and got no callers, so my stack was around 12 bigs when we were down to 29 players.
A motion was made to take $330 from the $5600 first place prize and pay two extra players. Motion approved! We're in the money!
But wait...
There was an objection after all. One player wasn't having it.
Okay, that's certainly their right. A little odd considering it's such a small slice of a massive first place prize, which is nearly 50% of the price pool entire and will likely be chopped up anyway, but whatever, it's not the end of the world. It's also bad form and kind of a dick move, but who cares really.
Then I heard who the person was, and it was a name I recognized.
Barbara Enright, is a member of the poker hall of fame. She was put there primarily because she is the only woman to have ever made the final table of the Main Event. She also has two bracelets, including an open event - and she was the first woman to win one of those. Good for her. A results search on the Hendon Mob shows that she hasn't been doing that fantastic of late, binking teeny cashes in teeny events, but hey, she for sure deserves to be in the hall.
So okay, good for you. So here you are in a $70 tournament full of recreational players like me who work hard all week in 9-5 jobs just so we can go out and have some fun playing poker and donate to people like you. We play for 8 hours, the money is in sight and what do you say to that?
A big "fuck you fishy" apparently. You can't see that there might be a modicum of +EV to have two more amateurs happy that night? And that there might be a hell of a lot of -EV, both in the game and outside of it, for you when word gets out that you're a miserable bag of meat who delights in making other people miserable too?
Guess not.
Most ridiculous of all, she wasn't chip leader, or anywhere close to it for that matter. Roughly 60 bigs, which was pretty puny compared to the mountainous piles around her.
The entire room was abuzz with disgust at Ms. Entright's stubborn and apparently spiteful edict, which she had insisted on AFTER the official "you've made the money" announcement was made. I got an earful from the regulars at my table how "she does this shit all the time" and how "she's a miserable old bat" who thinks of no one but herself on and off the felt.
Okay, I'm convinced.
Really, the biggest strike against her as far as I'm concerned is that visible pros, especially ones in the freakin' Poker Hall of Fame, have a very real obligation to be ambassadors of the game.
Poker is indeed a brutal sport and often ruthless, but what makes it magnificent is the flashes of generosity and honor that flare up on occasion. I have witnessed this myself many times at the table - whether it's a group of Vegas regulars digging into their own pockets to pay the tourist bubble who just busted or a crusty old dealer misreading the board and a young internet kid politely correcting him so that HIS OPPONENT would rightfully get the pot - it DOES happen, and every time it does, a little bit, a tiny bit, of the stigma that the game still carries from the riverboat days when it was known as "the cheating game", washes away.
Then a first class douche nozzle like Barbara Enright comes along and takes a big dump on that goodwill, and recreational players like the fellow across from me who did indeed turn out to the bubble walk away discouraged and bitter.
Worst of all, the bigger point is, because of Miss Enright's short sightedness, we had to go hand for hand. I've never experienced this before, in my 7 years of live tournament play, simply because nobody, not even one of the biggest chip leaders I've ever seen who literally had half the chips in play in front of him, had the classlessness to insist on boning the bubble boy.
The guy who finally busted out 28th, the aforementioned fellow across from me, was eliminated in heart wrenching fashion. Forced to go all in blind, he flopped the wheel, and lost to a higher straight on the river!
Good job Barbara Enright, hope it was worth it. That guy ain't coming back and he's going to tell every single one of his friends and family what a raging cunt you are.
And some people might even blog about it.
Anyway, back to me. We redrew for the final three tables I was moved to Miss Enright's tables, but had no interest in saying anything to her or even acknowledging her presence. She for sure sensed this from around the table, but she truly did not give a massive fuck. I do admit I have a teeny bit of respect for that, but moreso, my compassion creeps in and I feel more than a twinge of sadness for a lifelong degenerate that is so empty inside.
19-27th place would only make $165, so I happily loosened up and shoved here and there, no callers, so I kept my head above water. Then I got queens! I shoved my 8 BB stack and got called very light by a mongo stack and my hand held for a nice double up.
Now I had a real shot to make a pay jump, and by the skin of my teeth I did, booking $245 for 18th place after my first in A6 from the button was called by the big blind with 57 and turned trip 5's.
It was 130 in the morning, but I was happy - happy to have lasted and (excluding a couple of lovely moments of genius on my part) mostly folded into the money.
Recreational player happy, Barbara Enright still miserable.
Speaking of miserable, one last dreadful story.
After the bubble had burst and I was at Enright's table, there were three monster stacks down at the opposite end. It was time to color up, removing the 500's and cutting down on the sheer volume of 1000's. With most of the players gone I watched the floor do their thing with the racks and the chips.
The 3 big ass stacks each had most of their 1K chips replaced with bright yellow 10K chips, the blinds were huge, and this would make it easier for them and for everyone. Standard. All rooms do this.
The owner of the biggest stack of all came back and immediately launched into a half serious/ half typical So Cal cardroom douche = humor rant about "The sickness you guys have with touching my chips". It was explained to him that TDA rules call for it and he bitched and moaned as if he was hilarious and all casino staff were idiots. Standard So. Cal jackass / bad stand-up comedian.
So a few hands go buy. A big stack to douche's right three bets an EP raise. Douche ships it. Original raiser folds, 3 better calls and fast rolls his rockets.
Douche turns up A10!
After AA dodges a suckout douche loses his shit. Not on AA, but on the TD!
All sorts of nasty names come out and before he knows it, he's on a full round penalty. He stalks off and rants and raves to his friends near by.
What. A. Moron.
It was going to take a lot to make Barbara Enright seem like a nice and normal person by comparison, but this guy did it.
Kudos to the TD for swiftly penalizing the dick hole and then following up with a stern threat of disqualification which actually silenced the douche as he stormed off in a huff.
A casino not taking shit from a regular is a rare thing in So Cal. If the Bike would do it more often they'd have a much nicer place to play. As of now, the lack of shit taking is the exception rather than the rule, and the inmates are pretty much running the asylum. Hollywood Park is a much more civilized place to play, and that's really saying something.
Anyway, really looking forward to a fun Friday night with with home game. Thanks to my run goot, my confidence is pretty high right now and that always helps me play better.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Sobering Score
Tuesday I headed out to Vegas for work, I was scheduled to shoot 8 interviews as well as a show, but of course I also had to take advantage of my location.
We were staying at the fabulous Flamingo on the strip, and by fabulous I mean shitty.
The room was actually decent, clean and up to date-ish. Not nasty like IP, but not as spic as Harrah's either. What was really crap about the place was the sprawling and smoky casino floor covered in an ocean of drunks which I had to navigate through time and time again during the course of my work day. Not fun because my work day involved lugging around copious amounts of heavy gear. Oh well.
Our first day was half travel and half reconnaissance for the shoot, but we didn't finish until after 9pm. My tournament poker options were severely limited at the late hour, and I had a full day ahead of me. So naturally I picked the 10pm $85 donkament at Caesar's.
I at first had considered the much more fun and silly $50 10pm at T.I., likely to only last three hours or so, but as I had no car and it was a 25 minute walk, Caesar's won the day. I knew this was a more serious event that was likely to end at 3am, but I didn't want to make the trek to T.I. as I would be late in sitting down (which is deadly in a turbo) and then also have to hoof it a long ways back at 1am if I went deep.
I don't remember much from the Tuesday tourney, other than being card dead and at a fairly strong table right from the get go. There were several aggressive recreational/regular players who delighted in 3 betting limpers large and firing multiple barrel bluffs. Not exactly a great location for chip accumulation.
In the handful of other times I've played at Caesar's I've run into similar tables. My good poker buddy Sven has gone deep twice there I think, and has reported that his tables were very soft. Either he really is that much better than me or I just have been very unlucky with table selection.
I was a little late, so I imagine that every night customers wander in whenever they can get there and typically sit down at the last table or two to fill.
Anyways - it is a pretty great room. Good dealers and entirely smoke free, with more different daily tournaments than any other room in Vegas and probably the world. I haven't run that great there, but other than that it's fantastic.
All of the tournament structures are also rather turbo-ish (though not super-turbo) and they don't compare to the Venetian, Aria or Wynn - but Caesar's Multi-Table Tournaments are the 4-5 hour variety, not the 8-9 hour kind. Truly mid-stakes MTT's.
Like I was saying, I don't remember much from Tuesday night. I know I got my money in good a few times and couldn't hold - including a rather gross AIPF with my JJ that was called with TT that of course spiked a ten on the river.
I folded and folded, probably longer than I should have (down to 8 bigs) before I got it all in with TPGK on a dry flop only to get slow rolled with pocket kings in what had been a multi way limped pot.
Good times anyhow, as the table was friendly enough and I was able to get to bed at a reasonable hour for the big day ahead.
The next night, after finishing up a long day of shooting interviews and the Donny & Marie show (pretty good if you're into that sort of thing) I once again couldn't resist my inner degenerate and hit Caesar's. This time I was a bit early, and I realized something that I know I will be using for the rest of my tournament poker career - the fish show up early.
When I think about it, the logic is inescapable.
Who is more likely to sit down 15 minutes ahead of time? An enthusiastic home game player who only gets to play once or twice a month and in Vegas only once or twice a year, or an every day regular who sees the game as a job or at the very least a way to supplement his income?
Easy answer: us fish will always be the early ones.
I realized this about an orbit and a half into play- this table was super passive and limpy. Just like the other tournaments that I've manhandled at T.I., Harrah's and Monte Carlo. There wasn't a single local to be found.
There was one stern bloke down at the end opposite of me, and by bloke I mean British. I thought he might be a regular, as he was the strongest player at the table by far - but his accent gave him away. He was a serious recreational player on vacation from the UK. He was easy to avoid.
I went to work and probably won close to a dozen hands before the break without a showdown. No aces, kings, queens or jacks. One AK that I used to shove from the BB after a multi-way limped pot to which everyone folded.
Otherwise, with nary a hand to speak of, I would c-bet dry flops and they would fold. I would re-raise obvious steals and they would fold. I would re-raise donk bets and they would fold. For the most part I was masterful pre-flop, and the few flops I did take I felt comfortable enough that I could get frisky and still be able to get away if anyone fought back.
It was a lot of work, and I didn't have as much to show for it as I would have liked after the antes kicked in, but I was definitely above average in chips. (Unlike a big event, say like the Main, with mid-stakes turbos you have to chip up early if you want to have room to maneuver at ante time.)
I dwindled a bit before getting lucky and doubling through a big stack. As the second break approached my image was pretty maniacal and I used it to get paid when I four bet shoved into a multi-way pot with my kings into a fellow who had just about had enough of me and called off with A7. The other fellow in the hand (the initial raiser) folded his jacks face up. My money went in way good and my hand held, especially because jack boy folded - the jack on the turn was meaningless. I was then promptly moved to another table.
A different table. A shitty table.
It was quite simply, shark infested.
I tried a move early on and got three bet large by a mouthy maniac. I had to release my hand, though I still wonder if I could have four bet shoved him off of his hand. Probably not. I watched him for awhile and he gave off a lot of information. He clearly knew what he was doing, and I didn't ever see him get a big chunk of his stack in without some kind of strong hand or monster draw.
I was hovering around 15 to 20 bigs for the next two hours, mostly folding - occasionally waking up with a monster and open shoving with no callers.
I accumulated a little bit, but not nearly enough. The table was simply too active and aggressive to get tricky without card equity.
I was sitting on 10 bigs when our table broke. 18 runners left. 5 would get paid.
Unfortunately, two of the biggest sharks at my second table joined me at my third (and what would eventually be the FINAL) table. Mouthy maniac and a nice European fellow who very much knew what he was doing.
Also at this third table, the British bloke. He had a mountain of chips. He and the mouth got into it a bit, though friendly. Mouthy made it very clear he was playing for first place only. It was also obvious to me that at least four and probably five other guys at the table were hell bent on doing the same.
At this point we had our third break of the evening. I reflected as I walked in vain through Caesar's in a futile search for a store with caffeine products.. After playing seriously in tournaments for going on 7 years now, I have a pretty good sense of what gear I should be in. And my gear of choice for the rest of the tournament was going to be sooooper tight. When I sat back down I was reading the heat off of all these guys - the big stacks were all gunning for each other.
Boom. A big stack (friendly European) fell. Boom. An above average stack fell to the Bloke, who now probably had close to half the chips in play.
7 players left.
It was folded around to me in the small blind - Ac2c. I had maybe 12 bigs. Easy shove to pick up all the dead money, antes and big blind.
Friendly British dude snap called with A7. I'm happy with my decision, I had been sooooper tight for a long while. Even so, I don't think his call was light. The hand played itself.
A two fell in the window and held. Friendly British guy still managed to stay friendly even after I had gotten all my chips in crushed against him and sucked out. I admit it felt weird to stack all his chips, like somehow I wasn't deserving. Even though my decisions were correct, it still sucks to get it in SO bad - twice.
6 players remained. Bubble time.
A short stacked female to my right floated a suggestion to pay the bubble out of our pockets. We all were happy to agree to that. The lady was assuming it would be her, since she had the smallest stack, and we all knew this, but it wasn't a big deal.
Turned out, she didn't bubble - it was mouthy maniac who busted next after a badly timed three bet squeeze with a baby ace that ran into the Bloke's overpair. I didn't hate his move, with all the dead money out there, but it wasn't the best spot for him to pick with a massive chip leader to his left.
Mouth stood and collected $20 from each of us. Two players were short on cash, so the Bloke agreed to pull out twenty dollar bills for them until they got paid at the cage.
The very next hand...
I folded UTG, biggish stack to my left raised it up from the cutoff.
The button, another big stack who talked way too fucking much (though he wasn't nearly as nice as the mouthy maniac) hemmed and hawed (beware the Hollywooding) before click-raise 3 betting.
The small blind was the Bloke who flat called. The blind (short stack lady) folded. The initial raiser also flatted.
Flop came low and ragged 65x.
The Bloke checked, the cut-off led out smallish. Hollywood tanked and tanked and tanked and tried (but failed) to look anguished before sighing loudly, throwing up his hands and declaring all in.
I knew he had aces before he had a chance to turn them up.
The bloke re-shoved his mountain of chips. The cut-off, a bit bewildered, did a genuine long tank before calling off with queens. Absolutely horrible call.
Hollywood had the bullets, Bloke had flopped two pair which held.
Queens guy was gracious. Hollywood was an absolute dick, exploding about the pre-flop call. He was entirely wrong of course, with his stack at around 35 bigs he must shove every single time with aces if there's been action in front. Only then is Bloke making a mistake by calling. Getting 3 to 1 with a chance to stack the two other players closest to him in chips, the pre-flop call was a no-brainer.
Best of all, after this bit of nastiness (accompanied with a very typical Vegas regular type false apology at the end) Hollywood guy up and skedaddled after getting paid at the cage, not paying the Bloke the $20 that he owed! What a douche!
I mean really, all a poker player has at the end of the day is his word. Money comes and goes, but if you're going to be a dick-hole, that will be ever lasting. Dumb ass.
So, I'm happy to say that my soooper tightness paid off, I had made a $200 pay jump and was guaranteed $515 for third at the minimum.
Three handed, the lady on my right was on the nub, probably about 4 bigs. Bloke doubled her up once, twice, and then she and I were pretty close to even.
She had suggested that she and I split 2nd and 3rd earlier - since there was another $200 jump, from $515 to $735, I had declined. But now that we were both close, and Bloke was still WAY out in front, I took her up on her offer. We both had enough chips that we were still technically in it, but it was 3am and I was exhausted. And in all honesty, Bloke was simply a better player than me, especially when I was dead tired and he very well could be on London time and wide awake.
So Bloke was getting $1080 for first and he chimed in that he'd throw us the extra $80 to split, so when the monies settled we each got $660! Nice! (We toked the extra $5 and I chipped in a bit more as well).
Felt great to go deep and to score biggish, but it was also sobering. I had run exceptionally well all night. All of the times I got in ahead my hands held, and even twice when I got it in crushed I managed to suck out.
I'm convinced that good variance is an essential ingredient for any deep run in a poker tournament. Without it, there is simply no way to make a big score. Too many times you have to get your money in, you simply have to win the flips, maintain the best hand and even suck out a couple of times - to have any chance to outlast 50+ players.
Not a lot of poker up ahead, hopefully I'll get invited at some point to Eric's game again - it sucks being an alternate! My home game goes on the 25th, a Friday night which is unusual, but it was either that or nothing this month at PSP.
Wait, that's not true - I had a cash game at the beginning of May. I played dreadfully. Very unlike me to get tilted early and try clumsily to get unstuck. Lost 3 buy-ins. Feels especially good to recoup all of that and more at Caesar's.
Very much looking forward to the WSOP, I've tentatively booked the end of June. I've got three horses as well in events earlier in the month, I feel VERY good about two of them and good enough about the third. Overall summer should be a blast.
We were staying at the fabulous Flamingo on the strip, and by fabulous I mean shitty.
The room was actually decent, clean and up to date-ish. Not nasty like IP, but not as spic as Harrah's either. What was really crap about the place was the sprawling and smoky casino floor covered in an ocean of drunks which I had to navigate through time and time again during the course of my work day. Not fun because my work day involved lugging around copious amounts of heavy gear. Oh well.
Our first day was half travel and half reconnaissance for the shoot, but we didn't finish until after 9pm. My tournament poker options were severely limited at the late hour, and I had a full day ahead of me. So naturally I picked the 10pm $85 donkament at Caesar's.
I at first had considered the much more fun and silly $50 10pm at T.I., likely to only last three hours or so, but as I had no car and it was a 25 minute walk, Caesar's won the day. I knew this was a more serious event that was likely to end at 3am, but I didn't want to make the trek to T.I. as I would be late in sitting down (which is deadly in a turbo) and then also have to hoof it a long ways back at 1am if I went deep.
I don't remember much from the Tuesday tourney, other than being card dead and at a fairly strong table right from the get go. There were several aggressive recreational/regular players who delighted in 3 betting limpers large and firing multiple barrel bluffs. Not exactly a great location for chip accumulation.
In the handful of other times I've played at Caesar's I've run into similar tables. My good poker buddy Sven has gone deep twice there I think, and has reported that his tables were very soft. Either he really is that much better than me or I just have been very unlucky with table selection.
I was a little late, so I imagine that every night customers wander in whenever they can get there and typically sit down at the last table or two to fill.
Anyways - it is a pretty great room. Good dealers and entirely smoke free, with more different daily tournaments than any other room in Vegas and probably the world. I haven't run that great there, but other than that it's fantastic.
All of the tournament structures are also rather turbo-ish (though not super-turbo) and they don't compare to the Venetian, Aria or Wynn - but Caesar's Multi-Table Tournaments are the 4-5 hour variety, not the 8-9 hour kind. Truly mid-stakes MTT's.
Like I was saying, I don't remember much from Tuesday night. I know I got my money in good a few times and couldn't hold - including a rather gross AIPF with my JJ that was called with TT that of course spiked a ten on the river.
I folded and folded, probably longer than I should have (down to 8 bigs) before I got it all in with TPGK on a dry flop only to get slow rolled with pocket kings in what had been a multi way limped pot.
Good times anyhow, as the table was friendly enough and I was able to get to bed at a reasonable hour for the big day ahead.
The next night, after finishing up a long day of shooting interviews and the Donny & Marie show (pretty good if you're into that sort of thing) I once again couldn't resist my inner degenerate and hit Caesar's. This time I was a bit early, and I realized something that I know I will be using for the rest of my tournament poker career - the fish show up early.
When I think about it, the logic is inescapable.
Who is more likely to sit down 15 minutes ahead of time? An enthusiastic home game player who only gets to play once or twice a month and in Vegas only once or twice a year, or an every day regular who sees the game as a job or at the very least a way to supplement his income?
Easy answer: us fish will always be the early ones.
I realized this about an orbit and a half into play- this table was super passive and limpy. Just like the other tournaments that I've manhandled at T.I., Harrah's and Monte Carlo. There wasn't a single local to be found.
There was one stern bloke down at the end opposite of me, and by bloke I mean British. I thought he might be a regular, as he was the strongest player at the table by far - but his accent gave him away. He was a serious recreational player on vacation from the UK. He was easy to avoid.
I went to work and probably won close to a dozen hands before the break without a showdown. No aces, kings, queens or jacks. One AK that I used to shove from the BB after a multi-way limped pot to which everyone folded.
Otherwise, with nary a hand to speak of, I would c-bet dry flops and they would fold. I would re-raise obvious steals and they would fold. I would re-raise donk bets and they would fold. For the most part I was masterful pre-flop, and the few flops I did take I felt comfortable enough that I could get frisky and still be able to get away if anyone fought back.
It was a lot of work, and I didn't have as much to show for it as I would have liked after the antes kicked in, but I was definitely above average in chips. (Unlike a big event, say like the Main, with mid-stakes turbos you have to chip up early if you want to have room to maneuver at ante time.)
I dwindled a bit before getting lucky and doubling through a big stack. As the second break approached my image was pretty maniacal and I used it to get paid when I four bet shoved into a multi-way pot with my kings into a fellow who had just about had enough of me and called off with A7. The other fellow in the hand (the initial raiser) folded his jacks face up. My money went in way good and my hand held, especially because jack boy folded - the jack on the turn was meaningless. I was then promptly moved to another table.
A different table. A shitty table.
It was quite simply, shark infested.
I tried a move early on and got three bet large by a mouthy maniac. I had to release my hand, though I still wonder if I could have four bet shoved him off of his hand. Probably not. I watched him for awhile and he gave off a lot of information. He clearly knew what he was doing, and I didn't ever see him get a big chunk of his stack in without some kind of strong hand or monster draw.
I was hovering around 15 to 20 bigs for the next two hours, mostly folding - occasionally waking up with a monster and open shoving with no callers.
I accumulated a little bit, but not nearly enough. The table was simply too active and aggressive to get tricky without card equity.
I was sitting on 10 bigs when our table broke. 18 runners left. 5 would get paid.
Unfortunately, two of the biggest sharks at my second table joined me at my third (and what would eventually be the FINAL) table. Mouthy maniac and a nice European fellow who very much knew what he was doing.
Also at this third table, the British bloke. He had a mountain of chips. He and the mouth got into it a bit, though friendly. Mouthy made it very clear he was playing for first place only. It was also obvious to me that at least four and probably five other guys at the table were hell bent on doing the same.
A friendly British fellow, who was a buddy of the Bloke's, was on my left. He seemed capable and had about twice as many chips as me, about 40 bigs.
The Bloke was being super aggressive and raised it up from MP. I was on the button with AhQs. Easy shove with just under 20 bigs.
The friendly British fellow to my left re-shoved. Uh-oh. Yep. AK. But he didn't have any spades and when the fourth spade binked on the river I had doubled up.
Good decision, lucky results. He was lightly steamed, but thankfully not at me.
At this point we had our third break of the evening. I reflected as I walked in vain through Caesar's in a futile search for a store with caffeine products.. After playing seriously in tournaments for going on 7 years now, I have a pretty good sense of what gear I should be in. And my gear of choice for the rest of the tournament was going to be sooooper tight. When I sat back down I was reading the heat off of all these guys - the big stacks were all gunning for each other.
Boom. A big stack (friendly European) fell. Boom. An above average stack fell to the Bloke, who now probably had close to half the chips in play.
7 players left.
It was folded around to me in the small blind - Ac2c. I had maybe 12 bigs. Easy shove to pick up all the dead money, antes and big blind.
Friendly British dude snap called with A7. I'm happy with my decision, I had been sooooper tight for a long while. Even so, I don't think his call was light. The hand played itself.
A two fell in the window and held. Friendly British guy still managed to stay friendly even after I had gotten all my chips in crushed against him and sucked out. I admit it felt weird to stack all his chips, like somehow I wasn't deserving. Even though my decisions were correct, it still sucks to get it in SO bad - twice.
6 players remained. Bubble time.
A short stacked female to my right floated a suggestion to pay the bubble out of our pockets. We all were happy to agree to that. The lady was assuming it would be her, since she had the smallest stack, and we all knew this, but it wasn't a big deal.
Turned out, she didn't bubble - it was mouthy maniac who busted next after a badly timed three bet squeeze with a baby ace that ran into the Bloke's overpair. I didn't hate his move, with all the dead money out there, but it wasn't the best spot for him to pick with a massive chip leader to his left.
Mouth stood and collected $20 from each of us. Two players were short on cash, so the Bloke agreed to pull out twenty dollar bills for them until they got paid at the cage.
The very next hand...
I folded UTG, biggish stack to my left raised it up from the cutoff.
The button, another big stack who talked way too fucking much (though he wasn't nearly as nice as the mouthy maniac) hemmed and hawed (beware the Hollywooding) before click-raise 3 betting.
The small blind was the Bloke who flat called. The blind (short stack lady) folded. The initial raiser also flatted.
Flop came low and ragged 65x.
The Bloke checked, the cut-off led out smallish. Hollywood tanked and tanked and tanked and tried (but failed) to look anguished before sighing loudly, throwing up his hands and declaring all in.
I knew he had aces before he had a chance to turn them up.
The bloke re-shoved his mountain of chips. The cut-off, a bit bewildered, did a genuine long tank before calling off with queens. Absolutely horrible call.
Hollywood had the bullets, Bloke had flopped two pair which held.
Queens guy was gracious. Hollywood was an absolute dick, exploding about the pre-flop call. He was entirely wrong of course, with his stack at around 35 bigs he must shove every single time with aces if there's been action in front. Only then is Bloke making a mistake by calling. Getting 3 to 1 with a chance to stack the two other players closest to him in chips, the pre-flop call was a no-brainer.
Best of all, after this bit of nastiness (accompanied with a very typical Vegas regular type false apology at the end) Hollywood guy up and skedaddled after getting paid at the cage, not paying the Bloke the $20 that he owed! What a douche!
I mean really, all a poker player has at the end of the day is his word. Money comes and goes, but if you're going to be a dick-hole, that will be ever lasting. Dumb ass.
So, I'm happy to say that my soooper tightness paid off, I had made a $200 pay jump and was guaranteed $515 for third at the minimum.
Three handed, the lady on my right was on the nub, probably about 4 bigs. Bloke doubled her up once, twice, and then she and I were pretty close to even.
She had suggested that she and I split 2nd and 3rd earlier - since there was another $200 jump, from $515 to $735, I had declined. But now that we were both close, and Bloke was still WAY out in front, I took her up on her offer. We both had enough chips that we were still technically in it, but it was 3am and I was exhausted. And in all honesty, Bloke was simply a better player than me, especially when I was dead tired and he very well could be on London time and wide awake.
So Bloke was getting $1080 for first and he chimed in that he'd throw us the extra $80 to split, so when the monies settled we each got $660! Nice! (We toked the extra $5 and I chipped in a bit more as well).
Felt great to go deep and to score biggish, but it was also sobering. I had run exceptionally well all night. All of the times I got in ahead my hands held, and even twice when I got it in crushed I managed to suck out.
I'm convinced that good variance is an essential ingredient for any deep run in a poker tournament. Without it, there is simply no way to make a big score. Too many times you have to get your money in, you simply have to win the flips, maintain the best hand and even suck out a couple of times - to have any chance to outlast 50+ players.
Not a lot of poker up ahead, hopefully I'll get invited at some point to Eric's game again - it sucks being an alternate! My home game goes on the 25th, a Friday night which is unusual, but it was either that or nothing this month at PSP.
Wait, that's not true - I had a cash game at the beginning of May. I played dreadfully. Very unlike me to get tilted early and try clumsily to get unstuck. Lost 3 buy-ins. Feels especially good to recoup all of that and more at Caesar's.
Very much looking forward to the WSOP, I've tentatively booked the end of June. I've got three horses as well in events earlier in the month, I feel VERY good about two of them and good enough about the third. Overall summer should be a blast.
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